Posted on 01/13/2009 6:51:33 AM PST by MaestroLC
On the heels of its attention-grabbing trip to North Korea last February, the New York Philharmonic is planning another high-profile visit for next season: to Vietnam. The stop, part of an Asian tour in October, will be a splashy opening to Alan Gilbert’s tenure as the orchestra’s new music director.
(snip)
In Communist Vietnam, a freewheeling utopia of commerce compared with the hermetic, impoverished and tightly controlled North Korea, the orchestra will play at the Hanoi Opera House. Completed in 1911 during French colonial rule and modeled after the Paris Opera, it has about 600 seats, according to its Web site.
The New York Philharmonic has been to 59 countries, by its count, but never Vietnam, nor for that matter North Korea, before last February. That trip created an enormous amount of public interest and provided a rare glimpse of life in the country, or at least what the authorities allowed to be seen. The idea to go to Vietnam, a rare stop for Western orchestras, emerged in conversations among orchestra officials after the North Korea trip, Zarin Mehta, the orchestra’s president, said in an interview.
“It was so extraordinary that classical music became the center of attention,” he added. “We sat back and said, ‘What do we do to follow this up?’ ”
Mr. Mehta said the presence of some classical music tradition in Vietnam played into the decision, as did history.
“This is a country that we felt as Americans that we owed a visit to,” he said. “We had a big war with them. The country was coming back, and we felt it was a good thing to reach out to the people there.”
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
“And it’s one, two, three, who are we playing for? Don’t ask me I don’t give a damn, next gig is ...”
Imagine the CARBON FOOTPRINT! I can’t believe all these bright musicians — most of whom are almost certainly FLAMING LIBS — would participate in this rape of the planet.
Where IS Algore when we really need him.
At the time of their visit to North Korea, their music director at the time, Lorin Maazel, said that the US was just as guilty as North Korea with respect to human rights violations - so US citizens had no justification for complaint.
In addition to being hypocritical dumb as**s, these people are all about publicity (notorious or otherwise). Lots more publicity from a visit to Vietnam or North Korea than a visit to plain old Japan- which would hardly be mentioned.
ping
My first thought
Who is paying for this? I can’t image ticket prices even cover a signficant portion of it.
The NYP would like Saigon better.
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